[Boxjobox]

1In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2And the earth was waste and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep: and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

3And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. 4And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. 5And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.

6And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. 7And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. 8And God called the firmament Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.


This is obviously a section from “ the beginning”. A firmament between the waters below and the waters above was called “heaven”. Later lights were added to the heavenly firmament including the big light for day and the lesser light for night. Later, birds flew in the lower part of the firmament. But my understanding is that in this firmament called heaven is where God and his angels dwelt. Jacob saw a vision of a ladder that spanned from earth to heaven and the angels going up and down. Thunder, lightning, rain, hail, fire, brimstone, came from heaven, which was between the waters below and the waters above. The angelic beings often portrayed with wings. Jesus would look up to heaven when he prayed. Jesus ascended up and and a cloud received him. John gives a view of what takes place in this heaven. Much of what is spoken in scripture involves this place between the waters below and the waters above.

This place plays a major role in the concept of God in relation to events on earth and the situation of man. Man, who knew very little about this heaven, other than what he saw with the naked eye, eventually developed aides to see far more than anyone imagined. Then came the airplane, which took man higher than the birds, then jets- even further, and rockets and technical satellites which showed us that the stars an the two big lights were light years apart.

The thought of heaven- dare I carefully say the myth that has stood through 6000 years, has changed, yet how does one adapt their thinking about God, and all things related to God in light of these relatively recent discoveries. When the crude telescope was first introduced, it created no small hubbub among the church shepherds. When the Russian first went into space, he said he did not see God. But today we talk in somewhat expectatious terms of going to Mars. The church makes no comment on where God is now dwelling. And no talk of the water above the firmament.